Filip Bondy Reads from Chasing the Game

With Landon Donovan’s thrilling extra-time goal against Algeria on Wednesday, the U.S.A. won its World Cup group for the first time in 80 years. Now the Americans find themselves in perhaps the easiest bracket to advance to the semifinals—if they beat Ghana in their Round of 16 match on Saturday, they’ll play the winner of the Uruguay-South Korea game to land a place in the World Cup’s version of the Final Four. People have been saying for years that it’s just a matter of time before the United States becomes one of soccer’s true powerhouses. Will this be the World Cup that launches the likes of Donovan, Clint Dempsey, and Tim Howard into the pantheon of soccer immortality? Filip Bondy, a columnist for the New York Daily News, has written about America’s quest for World Cup greatness in Chasing the Game—here he reads an excerpt from the book for Fair Play.

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